Bakudanya: Cold ramen with spicy sesame sauce
When I first got to Tokyo, I slurped on ramen indiscriminately. I would have it for breakfast, lunch, or supper. High in calories and low in nutritional value, ramen is a popular one-person dish that is deliciously addictive with its savoury broth and slippery noodles — a taste of heaven but your waistline will go to hell.
Then I became more discerning, like most foreigners who hang around for a while longer, and found there are hugely varying degrees in terms of types and quality.
There’re tonkatsu (pork bone-flavoured soup), shoyu (soy sauce based), and miso (fermented soy bean paste). So Kanto, or east Japan, favours shoyu, while south Japan gave birth to tonkatsu, and the peeps in the North (namely Hokkaido) prefer miso and salt.
Besides getting to know the different kinds of ramen, I realized that big chain ramen joints, especially those that also serve ubiquitous ma bo tofu, fried noodles and other non-descript starchy stir fries, suck big time. The soup may taste savoury but there is no depth in the flavour and it has tons of MSG.
The best I have ever tasted were delicious bowls of miso and salty sesame flavoured soup ramen in central Hokkaido town Asahikawa (sorry no pictures because they were in my previous mac that died), rocking lobster ramen in Shimoda, and the sensational creamy tonkatsu ramen (pictured below) at Ebisu’s legendary Ippudo ramen shop which is taking New York by storm now.
Anyway, that was a long introduction about my love affair with ramen, so I was delighted to find yet another version of ramen.
On one of the days last week, I was in search for a light lunch as the weather was hot and sunny. I decided on cold noodles but where should I have them? I stumbled upon Bakudanya that belongs to a chain of ramen shops in West Shinjuku.
I have tried cold ramen before with a warm, thick soy sauce concoction that was alright, but it didn’t rock my taste buds. Because it was partially a hot meal, I still felt overly full, especially after adding the sobayu (the hot water from boiling the noodles) to the remaining sauce.
Bakudanya has a spicy, sesame stock to pair with a plate of al dente noodles, shaved scallions, lettuce, cucumber and char siew (bbq pork slices). You also get to choose how spicy you want the sauce to be — from zero to 20! Since it was my first time, I picked 10, a happy middle, I hoped.
The result? It was a unique experience to have cold but spicy chilli in my mouth. I found it hearty in flavour, especially when I dipped the scallions in the sauce. The noodles were delightfully chewy and the vegetables a healthy touch. Was it to-die-for? Not really. It’s a great summer alternative to the hot soup variety though. Another good thing was I didn’t feel too sleepy after a high carb meal which is due to the lack of MSG. In all, it was an innovative plate of cold ramen, that is perfect for a casual light lunch.
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